More Libraries... Everywhere: Building Community by Building Small Libraries

The Sisters testing how the community library
looks with shelves full of BOOKS!

Last week we asked you to "Guess What We've Been Up To" and many of you guessed it RIGHT! We're working on a bunch of really, really small libraries to help build communities --perhaps in a neighborhood near you, and of course, we'd like to tell you the story:

There is something really amazing that happens when many, many people all have similar ideas at the same time, Carl Jung coined the amazing word: Synchronicity. Synchronicity is simply a marvelous, meaningful coincidence. Months ago we met the wonderful Kristen Talaga, Marketing and Communications Manager at Traverse Area District Library. We recall our original meeting had to do with dreaming and scheming, but our subsequent meetings have been all about library support. During one of these meetings we realized that both Traverse Area District Library and BFWP were working on the same thing: building small community libraries. And our calendars proved even more more synchronicity:  we'd even planned little library festivities in the same week --we believe Carl Jung is smiling somewhere. It seems the whole world is getting excited about little libraries, they are popping up everywhere!

“This is not a new idea, but it’s a great idea so we are ‘paying it forward,’” said  TADL Director, Metta T. Lansdale, Jr.  “The message behind the Little Free Library is simple and dovetails with TADL’s mission; it’s about building literacy as well as a sense of community.”

Yesterday we witnessed as the first of many Little Free Libraries was dedicated to the wonder-filled community of Traverse City. There were balloons, smiles, hugs, official ribbon cutting, photos taken, and happy patrons browsing new collection. When the hubbub died down there the little library remained; waiting for the next patron to open its doors and "Take a Book, Leave a Book" as the library urges all who visit to do.

Kids Creek Little Free Library

Learn More about the synchronicity of small community libraries and the Little Free Library Movement:

• Kids Creek Little Free Library project explained via Traverse Area District Library
• The Record Eagle had a lovely article in the Sunday Paper Free Little Library for Borrowing, Lending 
• Want to build a little library RIGHT NOW?! Check out the TADL Builder's Toolkit
• Stop by Little Free Library for the background and how the group began their inspired work 
• Search "Little Free Library" and prepare to be inspired!
• And of course follow along with Books for Walls Project as we complete our own small library, we'll share photos, details and goodies along the way. Are you interested in a small library for your community? Contact us tell us what you are thinking. 

This article is dedicated to the amazing Kristen Talaga, we like to imagine a world where 

every library community has someone like Kristen on their team 

--that would be a lovely world indeed!